by Paul Collins
Pip whooped in agreement and tumbled off our deck, but he still managed to land on his feet.
‘No superheroes, kings, knights or alien nonsense,’ Dad said.
Pip agreed.
‘No looking at clouds and insects. You’ve got to keep your eyes up front.’
Pip agreed, jumping up and down on the spot.
‘And mow in a straight line, son,’ Dad added, beckoning him to climb aboard. Pip’s last response was smothered by a gulp of excited air. He bounced on the seat and placed his massive hands on the thick, black steering wheel. When Dad turned the key, Red rumbled and Pip yelled, ‘Sara, it’s like a space rocket going...’
‘Pip, concentrate,’ Dad snapped.
‘I am,’ he shouted.
‘These are the blades so you switch this down to lower them and up when you stop. If in doubt, hit this. It’s the engine safety switch.’
Pip nodded.
‘Hang on,’ Dad said, stooping to pick up a large branch that had fallen from a nearby tree. ‘I’m going to walk with you. Always keep your left front tyre on the line that I’ve already cut.’ He pulled Pip’s goggles into place, plopped the earmuffs over his ears and eased off the handbrake.
‘We’re moving! Red is mine now,’ Pip squealed.
Dad ran ahead and snatched up some more branches.
‘Throw down your lances!’ Pip screamed.
‘Oh, no,’ Mum whispered.
Dad’s head whipped around. ‘What? Slow down, Philip!’ he yelled. His lips were moving, but I expect Pip couldn’t hear through the earmuffs. Dad was waving his hands. Pip eventually slid the earmuffs down round his neck.
‘Concentrate! Straight line! Straight line,’ Dad screamed. ‘Where’s your left wheel?’
Pip looked. His left wheel was creeping away from Dad’s next line, taking Pip and Red with it. He tugged on the steering like one of those actors in a movie car chase.
‘No!’ Dad’s hands sliced the air, doing karate chops round his head. ‘Straight!’ Mum clutched my arm.
I sucked on my cheek. It was pretty hard to know what straight Dad wanted from Pip with those jelly arms waving. Good job he wasn’t a traffic cop, or a guy who brings in planes.
‘Pip!’
Pip adjusted the wheels again, quite quickly I thought, and headed back up the slope. I didn’t dare look at Dad, but at least he’d stopped yelling. Mum loosened her grip and the blood ran back into my hand.
A breeze picked up and the smell of mown grass tickled my nostrils. Halfway up the hill a flurry of small white butterflies flittered from the lawn, cut ting each other off in their hurry to get airborne. Did they enjoy it when the lawn was mown? Was it like a council clean-up for their houses, or did it leave them homeless? I lifted my eyes as they clouded above Pip’s head. Beside me Mum was waving hard and smiling. Her blonde hair crinkled around her head like a monster sunflower. It always went curly on humid days like this.
Pip pushed down hard on Red’s pedal, picking up speed. His back was ramrod straight and somehow he’d now acquired a long stick.
‘Take me to the queens, Red!’ he cried, flourishing the branch. There was a shout behind him. He didn’t seem to hear. His face was radiant. It was impossible for his smile to get any wider as he tore up the hill towards us. I held my breath, but Mum was cheering.
‘Come on, Sir Pip,’ she cried.
When he reached the top he took his foot off the pedal, lifted the blades, then switched off the engine just like Dad had told him. I let out a long hiss of air. Mum didn’t seem to notice.
‘Did you see me?’ he asked excitedly, leaping off
Red.
‘Of course. Come up here and look at what you did,’ Mum said.
Dad came jogging, pink-faced, to meet us.
‘Didn’t you hear me shouting, Pip? You were going too fast,’ he panted, and then he looked anxiously at Red. He seemed a little disconcerted on seeing his precious mower still in one shiny piece. Recovering himself, Dad joined us on the deck to observe Pip’s work: a massive shape, carved into the paddock.
‘It’s like Zorro’s sword,’ Pip murmured. ‘It’s amazing.’
‘Pip,’ Dad began.
‘That’s the straightest Z I’ve ever seen,’ Mum interrupted.
‘I’ll do your initials next time, Sara, and they’ll be straight, too,’ Pip promised me eagerly.
Dad ruffied my big brother’s hair and gave me a wink.
Below us, Red Rhino creaked, content with a job well done.
Monday: 3.35pm
Cam: Why me?
What did I do that caused Cranny to spin out and slap me with a detention?
Maz: Oh come on, it’s got to be obvious, even to a brain dead loser like you. Surely?
Cam: Brain dead? Loser? Me a loser?
Well, I suppose you’re right, if being a loser means being stuck here with you doing detention. I should be out doing something constructive with my friends.
Maz: Constructive? Other than stuffing your face with canteen food that’s half price because no one else wants it, you’ve never done anything construc tive in your entire life!
Don’t you mean off doing something DE STRUCTIVE with your friends; assuming that you know the difference!
Cam: Might I remind you that my friends are far better friends than those precious little princesses that you hang with.
Maz: At least my friends don’t walk around burping, picking and flicking.
Cam: Nope! Your friends don’t walk around at all. They’re too busy in the toilet block checking out their new boobs and bleached hair in the mirrors.
Maz: As if!
You know, one way or another, I’ll get you back for this. Mter all, it’s your fault that I’m here doing frig gin’ detention.
Cam: It’s not my fault!
Maz: Oh come on. Did you really think that Ms Cranny wouldn’t work it out, or was it that you just didn’t think?
Cam: Well, she’s not that bright. She’s just a history teacher who catches a bus to school.
Maz: Trust me - it’s not Ms Cranny that’s suffering from not that bright syndrome!
Now why don’t you do something constructive see ing that you’re here, and stop bugging me? Give your mouth a rest, your brain a workout, and say heelllooo to your science homework!
Cam: Started yours yet? So what’s the answer to the first question?
Maz: Like I’m going to tell you! I’ve got an idea - how about you let me finish it, then I’ll leave it on the table so that you can copy it. Sound familiar?
Cam: Build a bridge and get over it. I didn’t copy your history homework. It was just sitting there on the table so I had a quick look.
Maz: Jeez, Cam. I can’t believe you copied my answers.
Cam: Look, I was doing you a favour - I was just checking to make sure that you had the same answers as me. You know what I mean? The correct answers!
Maz: Yeah right! I bet you didn’t even read the questions. You just came to school, handed your stuff to Ms Cranny and pretended that my answers were yours.
Cam: Okay. But I am really good at history.
Maz: So then, tell me who Tasmania was named after?
Cam: That’s easy! Mr Tasmania of course!
Maz: Oh, haa! Haa! Yeah right, you know heaps about history. Cam, Tasmania was named after the Dutch explorer, Abel Tasman.
Cam: Well, for your information Abel Tasman changed his name by deed poll to Mr Tasmania. So there. Stick that in the rear end of your history book.
Maz: Good-o then! So what was Tasmania called before it was called Tasmania?
Cam: That’s easy, too! It was called Tasmanian Tiger Land. And then when those tigers became extinct the only thing left to do was to call it
boring old Tasmania.
Maz: Your history is pathetic. In fact you’re pathetic. Not funny, pathetic! It was called Van Diemen’s Land.
Cam: No way! How the crap did they get the word
Tasmania from Van Diemen’s Land?
Maz: Uugh! And what year did they change the name from Van Diemen’s Land to Tasmania, oh wise one?
Cam: Who really cares? It was sooo long ago, even Cranny wasn’t born. But what I do know is that it’s really important to know about sporting history, like that Collingwood won the AFL Premiership in 2010.
Maz: And like you’d need to know that bit of use less information to blitz a history test! The year was 1856, Cam - it was renamed Tasmania in 1856!
I bet you didn’t know any of the history homework answers, did you? You just helped yourself to mine; copying each and every one of them down, like the lazy little cheat that you are!
Cam: Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t. Either way the history I know comes in pretty handy at our sports trivia nights, unlike the useless crap you know.
Maz: It might come as a shock to you - but sports trivia isn’t going to help you pass the history exam at the end of the term - and nor am I!
Cam: Who cares? I’m only interested in what’s hap pening today, not what happened a million years ago.
Maz: It was only 1856; you should be looking for ward to failing maths, too!
Cam: Ahhh - whatever!
Maz: Well, so you’re only interested in what’s happening today, and what’s happening today is that you’ve got a detention, and the reason that you’ve got a detention is that you don’t know anything about history, and because of that you had to copy my history homework - so history is important today! Get it?
Cam: Enough already! You’re driving me nuts! You’re like a crazy dog with a bone!
Maz: I’m just making my point. And if I was a dog, and I had a bone, you’d be following me around to see where I buried it because you, the lazy little cheat that you are, would be too lazy to find your own bone.
Cam: Sure. That makes sense. Why would I bother trying to find my own bone when I could just as eas ily have yours, chew on it for a while, and then bury it back where I found it?
Maz: So, why would you bother finding your own history homework answers, when you could just as easily have mine? Sound familiar?
Cam: Oohhh, okay! So what do your reckon Miss Nook-n-Cranny is going to say when she gets back? Maz: Time to find out, cause here she comes.
Ms Cranny: Ahhh - here we are. The class clown and the bright girl who knows nothing - ironic isn’t it?
Well, at least it’s good to hear that the two of you are getting along - in fact everyone down the hallway can hear that you’re getting along!
Now, hopefully you’ve spent the last thirty minutes wisely and have decided to explain how you ended up with exactly the same history homework answers. One hundred questions and one hundred identical answers!
Cam.: (silence)
Maz: (silence)
Ms Cranny: I take it that you are not ready, or probably more to the point, simply not going to try and explain anything?
So Cam, who discovered Tasmania?
Cam.: Dutch explorer, Abel Tasman, Miss.
Ms Cranny: All right then, Maz, what was
Tasmania first called?
Maz: Van Diemen’s Land.
Ms Cranny: And when was the name changed to
Tasmania, Cam?
Cam.: In 1856. And that was less than a million years ago. So when were you born, Miss?
Ms Cranny: I’m very suspicious about you two ending up with exactly the same answers and each scoring one hundred per cent. I smell a rat.
Cam: No Miss, that’s not a rat, that’s the canteen. Marge and Betty Large are cooking today’s leftovers for tomorrow’s lunch!
Maz: Oh please - like you’re helping. Will you shut up, Cam!
Ms Cranny: That’s enough. Be warned, there will be letters going home to explain my concerns, detail ing the reasons why you were given detention.
Cam: Great! But can you explain to me why I’m on detention first, Miss?
Ms Cranny: This detention was given to you, Cam, so that you had an opportunity to reflect on how it was that you achieved a one hundred per cent score for your history homework, when it is a subject that you pay zero per cent attention in.
And Maz, you’re on detention because I believe you know the answer to the unanswered question - but you refuse to enlighten me.
You two have left me no alternative other than to find my own solution to the problem.
You both submitted history homework answenng one hundred questions - so you both deserve a mark. You both achieved a one hundred per cent score for the same work - and by that I mean, homework that appears to belong to one person, despite the fact that it was presented by the two of you.
So to solve the problem I’ll be dividing the one hundred per cent by two, which leaves you each with a pass mark of fifty per cent.
Maz: That’s sooo not fair!
Cam: Passing is better than failing!
Maz: I don’t fail history!
Cam: Well, clearly, neither do I, because I just passed with fifty per cent!
Three hours later at the dinner table
Cam: Maz, Maz! Have you done your science homework yet?
Maz: Yep! And it’s locked away in my desk drawer. Having to share my good looks with you is more than enough! So from here on, my dear twin brother, unless you’re going to pay up, I’m not going to share my brains.
Cam: Okay then. Here’s fifty per cent of my allowance. That should get me a pass for the science homework.
Maz: Fifty per cent of your allowance? I’ll take that as payment for the fifty per cent you scored on last night’s history homework.
As for your science homework, that’ll cost you one hundred per cent of next week’s allowance, and that’ll get you fifty per cent of the answers.
Take it or leave it!
On a country road intersection I pass from time to time there is a large collection of letterboxes.
They start me thinking.
Why won’t the postie go down the road? Is it dangerous?
Does a monster live down there?
Is the postie very fussy about keeping his car clean and won’t go down a dirt road?
Is it too far to the end?
Are the people who live down there horrible?
Do the letterboxes match the houses? Do the letterboxes match their owners?
What do the people who live down the road do? Are they friendly with each other? Do they play and work together? Or are they grumpy and keep to themselves?
What is in the letters that are in the boxes as I pass? Good news, like invitations to parties and prizes won, or bad news like speeding tickets, bills, death notices?
These are all beginnings for stories, which I begin to think up as I drive past.
Then another idea occurs to me. I could tell a story about each letterbox and the family that collects the letters from it. So there could be a story about ...
No 1. Pink, with a pointy roof and a tube for the paper. There are three girls in this family, two will only wear pink and are very good ballet dancers. The other wears blue jeans and keeps ferrets. They are entered in a ferret show next weekend, but there is also a ballet exam on then, and the car has broken down.
No 2. Rusty red box welded to an old crankshaft and on a bit of a lean. Bert and Hilda live at that address. Bert was a boxer and loves making things out of old stuff Hilda came from Holland when she was little. They met in a Heidelberg hotel.
No 3. The letterbox has come off its post and has a brick on top of a board to keep the rain out. No one has collected the mail for some time.
No 4. This letterbox is big and new on a strong post. It has a sparkling coat of white paint and some one has planted geraniums all around. The house belonging to this letterbox is also new and painted white. There is a team of gardeners putting down perfect lawns and perfect gardens surrounding a swimming pool and a tennis court.
No 5. This one is a fuel tank from a motorbike. It has a chrome lady on each side.
I’m still thinking up stories as I drive through the next town. One day I might use one or two of these ideas to write a book.
That is, if you don’t first ...
‘Why does it have to be me?’
An icy wind whipped Lita’s blonde hair around her tear-streaked face; her green eyes were wide with fear. She pulled the cloak around her small frame but could not stop shivering. Beside her, the waterfall roared. The drop was dizzying, the rocks at the base jagged. She could not do it. She wanted to run back to the safety of her clan but there was no choice.
‘Because the other ten girls failed,’ said Horler. The old wiseman was gaunt, fteshless, yet she seemed immune to the cold, the drenching spray and the fatal plunge two feet away.
‘They didn’tfoil. They died, broken on the rocks.’
‘They let the clan down.’
‘You made them dive for the pool. It’s your fault they died.’
Horler was relentless. ‘You won’t fail our people, will you?’
Sickness churned in Lita’s belly. The rocks seemed to be reaching up to her. Jump, jump!
‘You’re the last - except for your little sister,’ said
Horler. ‘Would you prefer I used her?’
The threat silenced Lita, as always. Tissy was special. She had to be protected.
‘What if I don’t have the gift?’
‘I think you do.’
‘Why can’t I climb down to the pool?’
‘It’s protected.’
Lita swallowed. ‘What if I can’t find my gift in time?’
‘You must.’
‘Why me?’ Lita repeated.
‘To atone for our clan’s shame.’